


The Waiting Room

by toodlepip



Category: Loki (Marvel) - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, seriously hollywood can go boil their heads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 01:32:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14606253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toodlepip/pseuds/toodlepip
Summary: Loki has a conversation with his Creator about the best way to cope with the vicissitudes of Hollywood.





	The Waiting Room

The Waiting Room was chilly, lit with cool fluorescent light. When Loki moved, the bench he sat on squeaked a little against the tiled floor. 

"Again," he said to the empty walls. "Every time I die, you make me wait." 

He pulled his coat closely to his chest. The need for warmth was a habit that was hard to deny, a learned reflex of another life. If the movement of his fingers on the leather gave him the sense that an unseen hand touched his, then it did nobody any harm, and perhaps it assuaged his loneliness a little.

A trolley squeaked somewhere, outside, beyond the closed door. He watched expectantly until it burst open and disgorged a cart piled high with cleaning gear and half-filled garbage bags. Behind, pushing it, was the Man Himself. He had a shock of thin white hair, kindly eyes behind angular glasses and a half-smile that spread across his face when he saw his visitor. His eyes crinkled into happy half-moons. 

"Loki! Always a pleasure, but son, what are you doing here? I thought you were a hero now. Saving the Marvel universe, right?" 

Loki gave a little shrug, face carefully blank. "You know I'll never be a hero," he said, voice flat. 

"Oh, I'm not so sure-" 

"You made me what I am. They'd never let me-" And there it was. The first cracks in his heart, shattering in grief.

Stan Lee parked the cart carefully by the Coke machine. "Shuffle over, would ya?" and he sat down by Loki's side, taking a deep and unhurried breath before going on. "I didn't make you, not really." 

Loki shot a look at him that was pure poison. "Would you disown your son so lightly?"

"Not at all. I created you. I'm proud of that; but that Loki was just the start. Long time ago. You've changed so much, my boy; those writers and artists and actors taught you a whole lot that I never could, so much that I didn't know myself. And you spoke to them, too." He reached out to grip Loki, lightly, on the shoulder, his expression growing more serious. "You're a Muse, you know." 

This last was said matter-of-factly, as though it were nothing more than saying, "You've got a mustard stain on that T-shirt," or "You did say you'd put the garbage out..." Perhaps it should have meant less as a result, but Loki was given to distrust of sentiment. The plainness of it pushed the statement into his heart, where it stung like a blade. 

He bit at his lip. Then, with sudden courage: "They did it again. They sent me back here! Again! Back to the Waiting Room!" 

"Son, you gotta remember: Hollywood's just a nest of wealthy ol' boys playing at being creative. They don't know what they do right, when they do it right; and they live in mortal fear of making a mistake." He poked at Loki's leather-clad shoulder. "They got you right, but they don't rightly know why. It bothers them. There's no formula for folks like you - so they tinker at it. And then they get it wrong." The smile on his face broadened. "You're a mystery. In an enigma."

Loki laced his long fingers together unhappily. "What am I meant to do? They say I'm _dead_. _Again!_ They won't let me-"

The Creator raised his eyebrows. "Let you? Let you? Loki, my boy, you're better than that. Look -" and he pointed firmly upwards, at the television screens mounted on the walls. 

Loki had paid little attention to them: the sound was muted, and he had been in no mood for 24-hour news networks. But - he saw (just as he had seen before, as he had realised before, the last times he'd visited this empty room and sat waiting in the cold) that each screen showed images of Loki himself; and herself; and other things too. It flipped rapidly from scene to scene, a thousand different scenes, line drawing, cartoon, images drawn in lines and watercolours and words that called to him, just at the edge of his hearing. He fancied that he could hear voices, speaking very quietly, somewhere in the distance. Absorbed, he closed his eyes for a moment, chasing down a single voice, listening to its insistent narrative flow, letting himself feel the pull of its gravity- 

When he opened them, the Creator said, "Now you can hear them again, can't you? The plots?"

"I can," said Loki. "Where did they go, before?" 

"Hollywood's got a loud voice, son. Drowns everything else right out if you let it. But nobody says you have to spend your time listening to them. If Hollywood want you back... and they _will_ want you back, you can be sure of that - that's the economics of desire... when they ask you to come back, you choose for yourself. Either way-" He pushed a strand of Loki's unruly hair back off his shoulder. "Maybe you should listen to those voices. So many people, all wanting to write a tiny chapter of your story."

Loki thought about it. 

"Put it this way," said the old man, "if you want to take a vacation, then I can't say you haven't earned it. But you're a legend, my boy, and a myth and a meme, and there's no call for you to lounge around here feeling sorry for yourself. Not if you're ready for something new. There's a big old multiverse out there. _Enjoy_ it."

When he concentrated on the quiet voice, frost grew on the tips of his fingers. In that author's world, it seemed, he was able to exert fine control over the ice. He watched it form, seemingly absorbed, and without looking up he said, "But what about my brother? My people? Thanos?" 

The old man sighed wistfully. "I know," he said. "All of you, all the time, you want to make things right. That's why I'm so proud of you. And you're right; you can't trust Hollywood to do right by your brother or your people or yourself. But you know you can trust Thor. And in the end, Hollywood ain't the only game in town, and in the end, Thor's going to work that out, too. So: do as you please. Choose your writers. Choose your artists. Choose a plot that works for you." He put his warm hands on Loki's cold wrists. "And _trust yourself_."

Loki stared at the old man's hands, warm on his cold skin. "Doesn't that hurt?" 

"Nope," said Stan Lee, patted his wrists for good measure, and went to stand up. "Well, things to do, people to see-"

The younger man grabbed for him, in brief, unreasoning panic. "Don't leave me here!" 

"Oh, I won't." He nodded towards the doors, which stood open. "We can leave any time we want..." 

 

Imagine a waiting room, gray-painted walls, tiled floor, and a series of benches. In one corner is a Coke machine with a flickering illuminated sign. Televisions on the walls display scenes that you can't quite recognise - not unless you concentrate on them for a little longer than your eyes allow. There is nobody here. Through an open door, you glimpse the outside world; a grassy slope, the silvery scar of a distant fjord. There is a tang of salt in the air. And outside, walking towards the sea, is a slim, raven-haired man wearing green and black. 

In a minute, maybe you'll go outside and find out what he's doing here, on Midgard, in the green and lovely place that is Norway on a summer afternoon. Maybe you'll ask where he's going. Maybe you'll find out why his expression just broke into a small and hopeful smile. But for now, you are content simply to watch him. 

There is a small, quiet voice in the air that speaks of _home_.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I have always hated the universe-shaking Event nonsense that Marvel is so fond of, even in the comics. It's the single thing that caused me to stop reading comics, eventually, every time I ever really got into them; I just don't think `everybody dies' is drama so much as it is laziness. My pet hate is interruption of well-written plotlines to insert arbitrary Event-driven gumph. Anyone who tries that trick, be they DC or Marvel or really anybody, incurs my wrath. Therefore, I didn't bother seeing Infinity War, because life's too short and Deadpool 2 is coming out soon and will probably be less annoying. However, this does not stop me from having an opinion about certain plot points - I do, and this is it. Sorry, everyone, for being so ... grumpy. 
> 
> Unbeta'd, so apologies for the inevitable typofest.


End file.
